Scars
by adorablehazel
Summary: People often say that time will heal all the wounds but they always forget that those wounds leave scars behind them to remind you, taunt you of its very existence. Please R&R. - EDITED


Scars

Summary: People often say that time will heal all the wounds but they always forget that those wounds leave scars behind them to remind you, taunt you of its very existence.

Disclaimer: I DO NOT own Gakuen Alice.

#$%*&^

_People often say that time will heal all the wounds but they always forget that those wounds leave scars behind them to remind you, taunt you of its very existence. You wake up from your living nightmare and try to move on in your life. You smile, laugh; enjoy your life but somewhere deep down that fear is still breathing inside you._

_You busy yourself in the work not giving yourself the time to relax in fear of reliving that nightmare through your memories. But everyday as you surrender yourself to sleep, you are preparing yourself for your worst fear to become your everyday nightmare, to relive your past, to relive the moment which changed you, shook you to the core._

_You try to run away but you always end up back to square one. You try to escape but you are always found by your fears. You become so helpless that you just give up and brace yourself to relive the moment you lost yourself._

Mikan was kidnapped by the AAO as bait to bend Natsume in giving in to their wishes. Natsume was furious with AAO and with himself for not being able to protect her from danger. Everyone in the academy was worried for their cheerful brunette and was doing their best to bring her back to the academy in one piece.

They were getting frustrated by each passing minutes as the Academy was still planning on their course of action. Finally after what it looked like a decade but in actual were just a few hours, they decided to take matters in their own hand. All the members of their group were sitting in Natsume's room impatiently waiting to get Mikan back. Suddenly Hotaru stood and started exiting the room when Anna asked her, "Where are you going Hotaru?"

"I can't sit here all day and depend on those fools to get that idiot back."

"What are you gonna do?" asked Ruu. Hotaru smirked and left the room without saying anything but her smirk was enough to let everyone know that she got a plan. Everyone followed her to her lab and there they started discussing their plan.

After an hour of serious discussion and formation of plan, now was the time to execute it. Misaki and Tsubasa managed to convince Noda Sensei to teleport them using one of Hotaru's devices so as to stable his Alice. Natsume, Hotaru, Ruka, Tsubasa, Misaki and all others of class – 2B managed to sneak out of the academy. They tracked the AAO headquarters where Mikan was being kept with the help of the tracker Hotaru installed in her bracelet.

All of them were connected by micro chips, in the shape of a panda, wore on their ears. They quietly sneaked in the AAO headquarters. Mikan was being kept at the third floor and all the floor were heavily guarded with hundreds of guards.

"Tsubasa, Anna, Sumire will take down the ground floor guards and Misaki, Yuu, Koko will take care of the first level guards. Nonoko, Kitsune will take down second floor guards and Natsume and Ruka will head to third floor to get that baka." said Hotaru in a commanding voice.

"What about you? What are you gonna do?" asked Tsubasa. Hotaru merely raised an eye brow as if daring him to repeat his question. Tsubasa stepped back from her and raised his hands in surrender as she replied, "I am co-coordinating everything here. What more do you want me to do?"

She turned around as koko said, "I am gonna sneak into their central room, get all their important folders and install a special virus that will crash their system to never be repaired again." Hotaru knocked him out with her horse gloves invention and said in a monotone voice, "Never read my mind if you don't want all your embarrassing pictures to be pasted all across the academy."

Everyone gulped and thought, "She is so scary." Ruka turned towards Natsume and said, "Don't worry we will get her back." Natsume shrugged his shoulders and said, "You should worry more about your girlfriend. She is too scary for her own good." Ruka scratched his head sheepishly and said, "Well that's just the way she is."

Everyone went through their plan once again and went their separate ways. Hotaru sneaked in their central room and started her work with their systems and data to completely destroy them. Ruka stayed on the third floor to fight the guards and asked Natsume to search for Mikan. Natsume opened all the doors on that floor with caution only to find them empty. At last he came at a double wooden door. He opened it with caution and was shocked to find Mikan lying there on the hard cold ground. Her hands and legs were tied down and there were a few bruises on her body. She looked exhausted but opened her eyes a little to look at the person who entered.

Her eyes widened upon seeing Natsume standing there in front of her. She faintly murmured his name, "Natsume…" as she tried to sit up. Natsume advanced towards her and hugged her while untying the ropes on her hands and legs. Mikan started struggling and pushed him away. To say Natsume was shocked would be an understatement. He couldn't understand her actions until he heard her say, "Go away Natsume. It's a trap. I will be fine. Don't worry about me. Just run."

He shook his head and hid his eyes behind his bangs and again started helping her as if he heard nothing. Mikan struggled against him and yelled at him to leave but when he looked up and glared at her with an unexplainable emotion in his eyes, she shut her mouth and let him have his way.

As soon as he untied the ropes, they heard a cold icy voice penetrate through the silence like a knife, "Well, well, look what we have here."

"Reo" said Natsume with utter disgust as he stood in front of Mikan hiding her from the red haired maniac namely, Reo.

"Come and join us black cat and we will let her and your little friends go back safely. We promise not to hurt them especially her. I will see to that personally." said Reo with a grin on his face and while moving towards them. Mikan inwardly shivered at his words and tightly held Natsume's shirt in her fists and moved closer to him.

Natsume held her waist with one hand and glared daggers at him before saying "Stay away from her. Take one more step if you have a death wish." Reo just laughed and took one more step to taunt him but to his bad luck, Natsume was in no mood of playing his little games and ended up burning his shirt.

Reo looked furious but was nothing when compared to Natsume's murderous look. "I wouldn't do that if I were you." Said Reo as one of his minions' teleported just behind him and yanked Mikan away from him. Reo laughed maniacally and said, "If you would have agreed to the deal then I would have let her go but looks like she is gonna die. Tell you what I will give you another chance. Join us and the girl gets to live."

"Nooooo Natsume. Don't listen to him. Don't you dare ever join them." shouted Mikan while struggling to be free from her captor's grasp. When nothing worked she used all her energy and hit him hard on his shin and when his grip loosened, she ran towards Natsume. Reo got angered and took out his control devices and yelled, "Sleep". All his little minions were fast asleep but Natsume and Mikan stood there without even a single effect as Mikan put a nullification barrier around her and Natsume.

Mikan was hurt badly and her body was screaming in agony but as the fight started, Mikan stood in a corner concentrating all her energy on keeping the nullification barrier on Natsume. Seeing as no Alice would work on him, they started fighting without Alice and nobody could say who is having the upper hand in this fight.

Mikan was of no help as she didn't know how to fight. She so badly wanted to help Natsume that the only thing she could do now was keep the nullification barrier around Natsume. So she closed her eyes and focused on keeping the barrier that she didn't realize Reo falling on the ground and Natsume standing not too far from her badly battered. He was struggling to keep standing and slowly started walking towards her. They both injured each other severely.

Reo seeing his defeat took out a gun from his pocket and aimed at Mikan and fired while saying, "Say good bye to your precious girl friend." Natsume was shocked but didn't show it and went in front of Mikan and took the bullet for her.

Mikan hearing the commotion dared open her eyes and found Natsume in front of her and Reo lying on ground a few feet from them with a gun in his hand. She looked at the ground at find drops of blood pooling near their feet.

She looked at Natsume to find a huge gash on his chest. She brought her hands on her mouth unable to blink back the tears forming at the edge of her eyes. She held Natsume closer to her and looked up to glare daggers on Reo. He was surprised to find her being able to glare with such intensity.

She was so furious. All her thoughts were jumbled but the one thought that stood out among others were Natsume is hurt. In the whirl of all her emotion, she didn't even realize that she activated her SEC Alice and copied Natsume's fire Alice and created a fire barrier around them. Both Natsume and Reo were shocked.

Mikan was so damn out of control with all her Alice's and Natsume was having difficulty with all the blood loss. Suddenly a light blinded them temporarily and when the light faded they both found Reo on ground with an Alice stone in Mikan's hand. She was so exhausted that she passed out. Thank god Natsume was there to prevent her fall but he too lost his consciousness as he cushioned her fall.

Soon Mr. Narumi and Mr. Misaki came with everyone else and found Reo unconscious and Natsume a few feet away from Reo also on ground with Mikan on top of him and a puddle of blood around them. They quickly rushed towards them and brought them to the academy hospital.

Mikan woke up yelling, "Natsume". She was drenched in her own sweat and her eyes were widened, tears threatening to fall anytime. She looked around to find Natsume but found nothing. She panicked and yelled his name again as she hugged her knees closer to her chest and resting her head on them as she sat motionless there.

Natsume went out of the shower wearing comfortable tracks and a towel on his shoulders to dry his hair as he heard her piercing scream and ran to their bedroom to find Mikan curled up on the bed. He engulfed her in a big hug. She looked up to find Natsume looking down at her with concern etched across his face. He pulled back a little and Mikan saw the scar of the gash on his chest. She slowly ran her fingers tip along the scar, tears flowing down her eyes like a water fall. It's been five years since the incident took place but Mikan still had nightmares of that night.

At times like these, Natsume cursed himself for not being able to protect her properly. Natsume removed her fingers from the scar and pulled her chin up for her to look at him with his finger and kissed her hard on the lips conveying all his emotions in that one kiss. His anger on not being able to protect her, his sorry, his regret, his love everything he tried to convey with that one kiss.

He slowly laid her on the bed without breaking the kiss. He then pulled back and kissed her temple as he tugged her under the covers. He moved to get up but was held back by a tug on his arm. He looked back and saw her looking at him with those big brown eyes.

He sighed and said, "I was just going to lock the door polka." She still didn't let go. He sighed again and slipped beside her. He held her waist with one hand and used other as her pillow. She snuggled closer to his warmth and fell into deep slumber but her hold on him was tight as ever. She murmured, "It wasn't your fault Natsume. Stop berating yourself." before giving in to the slumber Natsume smiled and pecked her cheeks, as she understood him better than anyone else ever can, before falling asleep.

_Scars will forever remind you of the mishap, the pain but as long as you have the warmth of your beloved caressing you, protecting you, you can fight back the numbness and the coldness threatening to surround you_.

_Falling….. Falling_

_I am falling in the depth of the darkness_

_A world full of coldness_

_Losing to this numbness_

_Come and…. Come and_

_Come and get me_

_Catch me_

_Set me free_

_Let me be_

_I am scared_

_My deepest fears flared_

_I try to escape_

_Make it out of this mess_

_I try to run_

_Take a turn_

_Open my eyes_

_End this nightmare_

_Somebody to care_

_Surrounded by the ghosts of my fears_

_As I shed my tears_

_Falling….. Falling_

_I am falling in the depth of the darkness_

_A world full of coldness_

_Losing to this numbness_

_Come and…. Come and_

_Come and get me_

_Catch me_

_Set me free_

_Let me be_

_I see a ray of light_

_With a new fire I fight_

_Your warmth seeps through me_

_Setting me free_

_I wake up from my living nightmare_

_To find myself in your care_

_Your concern eyes soothing me_

_Your gentle touch caressing me_

_I am free from my fear_

_When I see your smiles dear_

_As long as I have you near_

#$%*&^

Please Read and Review.


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